Tightening your security, safeguarding your right to privacy.

We all know by now that surveillance is ubiquitous. The Snowden revelations unveiled wide and far ranging capabilities on the part of the ‘five eyes’ coalition of intelligence agencies, NSA, GCHQ…

But recent leaks of the Italian Cybersecurity company Hacking Team exposed an even murkier side. The firm was dubbed a “Corporate enemy of the Internet” by Reporters Without Borders, and the data that has recently leaked from the company has all but confirmed as relevant its placing on this list:

HackingTeam: “Hacking Team’s ‘DaVinci’ Remote Control System is able, the company says, to break encryption and allow law enforcement agencies to monitor encrypted files and emails (even ones encrypted with PGP), Skype, and other voice over IP or chat communication. It allows identification of the target’s location and relationships. It can also remotely activate microphones and cameras on a computer and works worldwide. Hacking Team claims that its software is able to monitor hundreds of thousands of computers at once, all over the country.”(‘Meet the Corporate Enemies of The Internet for 2013’ )

Simple: Non-techies should also be able to follow this guide easily.Quick: 10 minutes is all it takes to follow this guide and create a private VPN server.Private: Dedicated VPN server for your use only.Secure: Encrypted & password enabled VPN server with no logs.On demand: You can start / stop the VPN server as required.Global: One or more VPN servers in 9 worldwide regions (including US, Tokyo, Singapore).Device support: Supports PPTP and L2TP with IPSEC which means you can use the VPN server on your Android, iPhone, iPad, PC, MAC, and even most routers (to support Apple TV, Chromecast).Open source: Review / contribute to this project https://github.com/webdigi/AWS-VPN-Server-SetupFree: New Amazon AWS customers have a free tier server for the first year.

5-Use TOR

What is Tor?

Tor is a volunteer-run service that provides both privacy and anonymity online by masking who you are and where you are connecting. The service also protects you from the Tor network itself.

For people who might need occasional anonymity and privacy when accessing websites, Tor Browser provides a quick and easy way to use the Tor network.

The easiest way to use the Tor network is to use the Tor Browser Bundle, which combines a web browser, the Tor software, and other helpful software that will give you a way of more securely accessing the web (From the EFF )

(PGP) is a way to protect your email communications from being read by anyone except their intended recipients. It can protect against companies, governments, or criminals spying on your Internet connection, and, to a lesser extent, it can save your email from being read if the computer on which they are stored is stolen or broken into.

OTR(Off-the-record) is a protocol that allows people to have confidential conversations using the messaging tools they’re already familiar with. This should not be confused with Google’s “Off the record,” which merely disables chat logging, and does not have encryption or verification capabilities.

OTR employs end-to-end encryption. This means that you can use it to have conversations over services like Google Hangouts or Facebook without those companies ever having access to the contents of the conversations. This is different from the way in which Google and AOL use the term “off the record” to mean that a conversation is not being logged; that option does not encrypt your conversation. (From the EFF )